History of Nell
by LA-ink13
Summary: Everyone thinks Nell's just a normal girl. But they were wrong. (one-shot)


She colored her hair red to remember, but also to forget. She made a living researching the lives of others, but she was careful not to mention her own. It wasn't until an older agent forced his way into her heart that she even let herself remember.

Nell didn't remember her father. He had left when she was four because he didn't want to be around her mom or her mom's drug habit anymore. It would have been a noble idea if he hadn't have run off with a woman from his law firm and left Nell and her sister with their mother.

When she was little she convinced herself that he and his new wife were setting up a home for her and her sister to live in, and he would come and rescue them. But he never came. Instead she and her two year old sister were left alone with their mother who was often too drunk or too high to worry about what her kids were doing. She spent everything that they had on her addiction until they were evicted from their home in a middle class neighborhood a year later and forced to move to into a dingy, cramped apartment.

Her mother was never home at night after that, and she saw no problem with leaving Nell in charge of her sister. Her mother never remembered that they needed food, and Nell would often find herself at the mercy of the bodega that was below them for dinner. In the beginning it was whatever the shopkeeper had thrown out, but after a while she noticed that his wife began to leave them food outside their apartment door after her mom had left. It wasn't much, but it was always enough to get them to the next day.

That was how they survived. A five year old taking care of a three year old, both of them dependent on the mercy of a stranger. When Nell was six, her mother was arrested for solicitation and drug use. It was two days before Nell and her sister were discovered. It took that long for the police to identify her mother and her mother admit that she had children. Nell and her sister were pulled from their home, and thrust into the foster care system for 48 hours before they found a way out. A grandmother. Their grandmother. Their mother's mother who had disowned her when she was a teenager, but was more than willing to take in her grandchildren and raise them.

For the first time in years, Nell didn't have to worry about anything. She and her sister were taken to a house in the country. They got new clothes, and new toys, and her grandmother promised her that in the fall, she would be starting school.

She loved school. She loved learning. The other kids in her class she didn't have much use for, and they teased her because she was quiet and didn't talk about herself. She had shoulder length, mousy brown hair, and there was nothing about her that made her stand out other than her excitement to answer the teacher's questions. The more she was teased, the more she drew into herself, creating a world in her imagination of spies and secret missions and government assignments to bring down world leaders. In her imagination nothing could ever hurt her, and she had the power to destroy everyone that teased her. She never told anyone about her daydreams; instead she kept them to herself and savored the secret.

And so it went for ten years.

It didn't always go smoothly, but Nell and her sister thrived under the careful watch of their grandmother. And it wasn't until a couple of months after Nell got her driver's license that everything began to fall apart.

It started the usual way. Her sister arguing with her grandmother. Her sister crying because her grandmother said that 14 was too young to date and no granddaughter of hers was going to date while they were still teenagers. Nell understood that her grandmother wanted them to turn out better than their mom. Her sister just saw it as punishment.

Her sister was the beauty of the family. Waist length red hair, big green eyes, and a bubbly personality. She was young enough that she didn't remember much of her life before they moved to her grandmother's house. She didn't remember the feeling of an empty stomach and empty shelves. Nell had always made sure her sister had enough to eat even if it meant Nell went without. For years, Nell had awoken with nightmares of bare cupboards, and some nights she found herself in the kitchen staring at the boxes of food in the pantry as she tried to slow the rapid beating of her heart, and convince herself that they wouldn't starve.

Her sister's temper was especially hot that night as she grabbed a pair of scissors and dramatically threatened to cut her hair, so she'd be ugly enough that no one would want to date her. That way she wouldn't have to tell anyone that the witch she lived with wouldn't let her date. Her grandmother had scoffed at the idea and Nell watched in horror as her sister carried through her threat, cutting a section of hair to her chin before dropping the scissors and running from the room in tears.

Nell had spent the rest of the night in her sister's room trying to calm her down and fix her hair. In the end, the tears were stopped and her sister's hair was transformed into a much shorter cut, which made her small features stand out even more. Her sister had thrown her arms around her with a grin. The short pieces were cut in an angular pattern and feathered out at random places, giving her young features an impish look.

The incident wasn't spoken of again, and everything returned to normal. A week later, her sister wanted to meet her friends at the local museum for the day, and her grandmother had agreed, deeming a group trip to the museum as much more age appropriate. Nell was to drive her, and keep an eye on her, but neither sister cared about that stipulation.

The day had been perfect. Spring had come early, and the weather even cooperated with them by being sunny and warm. Nell had lost herself inside the museum, catching sight of her sister enough to know that she wasn't getting into trouble. There was a special exhibit on military technology through the ages that Nell fell in love with and she found herself circling the exhibit multiple times as she read about the technology and imagined using it in the world of espionage that she had created in her head.

Nell always followed the rules, and made sure that she and her sister would be home by curfew. She didn't speed and she obeyed all the traffic laws. She always stopped on red and went on green. The drunk driver didn't.

Nell walked away from the accident. A few stitches for the gash in her arm, a sprained ankle, two broken ribs, and a couple of dozen bruises was all the sustained. Her sister died at the scene.

She changed after that. She had been quiet before, but now she was withdrawn. When the teachers asked her questions in class, she didn't answer. More than once she was sent to the counselor's office – but even there she wouldn't talk. Without her sister, she felt lost. She had spent her whole life protecting her, and in an instant she had failed her, and now she was alone.

Two months later she returned home school late, and was expecting to be scolded by her grandmother for not calling to say she'd be late. Instead she was greeted by the flashing lights of an ambulance. She scarcely heard the words of the EMT before she collapsed onto the lawn in tears.

She spent the night with a neighbor; her grandmother spent it in the morgue. The doctors would later tell her that her grandmother's heart had been bad for years, but all Nell could think was that it was her fault. She had been late, she had made her worry, and that had killed her.

She was alone. Sixteen years old and there was no one in the world left to take care of her. Her first morning alone she went to her grandmother's house to plan her next step. She would not go back into the foster system. The 48 hours spent there were enough. She would run away first, or find a boarding school that would take her. She was sure there was enough in the house to sell to put herself through school.

She was circling the house, her emotions out of control when the doorbell rang. She flung it open, ready to argue with whoever was there and insist that she wasn't leaving her home. Instead she burst into tears when she saw a man that reminded her of her father and a petite woman with long blonde hair.

He uncle, she heard him tell her. She had an aunt, and an uncle. Her father had a brother. He ushered her back into the house and told her what he knew. Her father, his brother had died three months after leaving. He never had the chance to come for her and her sister. He wasn't the evil man that Nell has imagined him to be. He was the one that kept them in their house. When he died and the money ran out, they were forced to move.

She cried at the news. More alone than she had known, she didn't even have an absent father to save her. Her aunt and uncle let her cry; they understood that she needed to mourn. When she was cried out, they offered her a new life. It was the best offer she had, better than running away or going to boarding school. She had dried her tears and nodded. Living with them would be practical. It was the grown up thing to do. It was her best option for survival.

She had cousins. A lot of cousins. A houseful. Her aunt and uncle had five kids between the ages of seven and eighteen. She was overwhelmed, and she was smothered. She didn't know how to let others take care of her, and she quickly became sullen and abrasive. Her cousins avoided her, and she was content to be left alone. She had her own bedroom, but she often found herself avoiding it, choosing instead to hide in the attic among the boxes of things that had come from her grandmother's house.

Her aunt and uncle gave her time. They knew the succession of losses weighed heavily on her, and they didn't want to push. Until she went too far over the edge, her mood changing from sad to completely despondent.

Her seven year old cousin, Tasha, was the one to find her. Nell was curled up in the attic, a switchblade pressed against her wrist, and a telltale grid of angry red marks on her leg. Tasha fled to her parents, and the next thing Nell knew she was in the hospital.

Eight weeks of treatment. The eight worst weeks of her life. It wasn't until her fourth week of treatment when she met a pre-doctoral psychology student that she even talked in her private sessions. For four weeks she had been shuffled from doctor to doctor, refusing to talk to any of them. When there weren't any more doctors for them to bring in, they started sending her to the students in the hopes that she would connect with someone. Finally she did. Nate. The first person to make any impact on her. Everyone else tried to talk her to death. He didn't. Instead he watched her, and asked simple questions about her day. He didn't go deeper than that with his questions. He didn't ask her why she did what she did. He didn't want to talk about her past. Instead he just wanted to know about her present. As he drew things out of her, he began to ask her about her future, what she wanted to do, what she wanted to be.

She didn't mean to, but she ended up telling him about her dreams of government spy work and secret missions. He had nodded and smiled. The next day he showed up with college literature filled with majors that would help her fulfill those dreams.

For four weeks she went to every session with him and talked about her ideas for the future. For the first time since the accident, someone wasn't forcing her to dwell on the past. Instead they were pushing her to look to her future. That made the difference.

When she was released, he promised that he would still be there for her, and sessions were arranged through the hospital for twice a week. The transition back to real life was jolting for her, but for the first time she accepted that her new family didn't mean to suffocate her, and she began to see their constant attention as an indicator of their love for her.

She started the school year in a new school. It was her senior year, and despite knowing no one, she was pulled into school activities by her cousin Jeremy who was a junior. He helped her find her nitch in the school, and with the help of biweekly counseling sessions, she was looking forward to applying for college, working on the yearbook, and going to prom.

She colored her hair, red, like her sister's had been, and her aunt told her it meant she was healing. Nell wasn't so sure until one weekend when she went to a local museum with her friends and didn't find herself dwelling on the last day that she had seen her sister alive.

She went to college. She stayed in touch with Nate, who has gone from therapist to friend after she graduated high school. He had found a job in LA, and while he didn't talk about it, he often teased her that there was a job for her there just waiting for her to graduate college.

It wasn't until the summer after she graduated college that she learned that he was serious. A packet arrived in the mail for her one day with a job application, a list of requirements, and a vague description of the job, analyzing data for a top secret division NCIS. He had enclosed a note telling her that due to the nature of the job and the intel she would have access to it would be best that she was vague with her family about the job if she chose to apply for it.

Nell was more than vague telling her Aunt and Uncle that she had found a job producing a television show in LA. They were skeptical of her moving to a city on the west coast alone until she told them that Nate had been the one to recommend the job to her. In the end, she packed her things and left with their blessing.

She lied to them and said that she wasn't scared to live in LA on her own. Inside she was terrified, but that was the side of her that she never let anyone see. She was obsessive, and her type A tendencies made her better at her job. She faked her way through being in control of everything; no one could tell that she was silently falling apart inside. The only flaws she would admit to was that she was too in control. She wasn't even sure that Nate knew what she still felt like inside.

She loved her job. But there were days when she wanted to quit. She felt alone in the city, and she was lost. She could feel all of her fears and insecurities coming back, and she had been disappointed to find that Nate had taken an assignment abroad from their boss. She hadn't even had a chance to thank him, and now he wasn't there to talk to.

She liked her partner, and she enjoyed working with the team, but when it came down to it, she was friendless. They were all as secretive about their lives as she was, and she found that she spent most nights alone.

She had been there for six months when he showed up at her door. He was the last person she thought would ever show up. She expected Nate if he ever came back into town. Maybe ever Eric or Deeks checking up on her. She didn't expect to see Callen on her doorstep at one in the morning.

She had invited him in, and put on a pot of coffee, nervous about why he was there. Out for a run and saw her lights on was the only answer she got. For that moment it was enough.

It wasn't the only time that he would show up at her door. Sometimes he stopped when he was on a run, but more often he came unannounced with dinner or drinks or both. Bit by bit he drew her out of her shell. He talked to her about his childhood, about what it was like to be shuffled from one foster home to another. He never asked about her life, but shared what he knew about his freely.

He was different those nights in her apartment than he was when they were at work. The focus and determination seemed to melt away and in its place was a vulnerable, soft spoken guy that didn't have his defenses up.

One night after a bottle of wine she got up the nerve to ask him why he was sharing his past with her. When he told it was because of a look in her eyes that he usually only saw in the mirror, she crumbled. Confessing everything that she had held in for years, she found herself sobbing against his chest. As her tears subsided, she didn't think. Instead she leaned up and kissed him, pressing her lips to his. She started to pull away, embarrassed at her boldness when she felt his hand on her neck, drawing her closer to him.

He broke the kiss first, a nervous look in his eyes. She looked up at him, silently biting her lower lip, considering the turn the evening had taken. She expected him to walk away or make an excuse. Instead he only smiled at her and pulled her back to him, letting her rest her head against him. As his arms wrapped around her, she smiled against his chest, and for the first time in a long time, she began to feel whole.


End file.
